MOSCOW IN FLAMES as Putin Pushes to "Surrender"—Ukraine HITS Russia's Capital with Surprising STRIKE

Moscow has descended into darkness and I mean that literally and figuratively. Over the last few days, Ukraine has sent more than 2000 drones towards the Russian capital and the result is something Vladimir Putin genuinely did not expect to see on his own skyline. Russian politicians are now openly speaking out against him. Some are even fleeing the country and Russian oligarchs are now moving billions of dollars in wealth out of Russia at a scale that has now triggered a stock market collapse that Russia has not seen since 1997. On top of all this, Ukrainian assassination squads are quietly operating inside of Russia and finishing missions that Kremlin cannot prevent. So Putin is living scared in his bunker. He's not even getting any good news from the front lines. Russia is losing jets and aircrafts at a rate that the Kremlin cannot explain and just recently, an entire battalion of Russian soldiers just walked into a Ukrainian trap and had no choice but to surrender on the spot. So in this video, I want to walk you through what is actually happening right now. The drones, the oligarchs fleeing the country, the stock market crash and of course, former Russian Prime Minister publicly warning the world about Putin. This is a guy who actually worked with Putin while he was president from 2000 to 2004. And now he's warning everyone about Putin and where he's taking Russia. As you guys know, my name is Sam and you're watching Business Basics. I really want to cover this Russian Prime Minister story because this is the most shocking story I have heard in quite a while. But before that, we do have to cover the biggest story coming out of Moscow and it has to do with drones. The Moscow skyline, well, it's not looking pretty unless you're a Ukrainian. And if we want to understand why oligarchs are panicking, why they are packing their bags, we have to understand what happened in last few days. So the thing you're seeing on your screen right now is the Moscow skyline two nights ago. The same thing happened yesterday night too. In three days, Ukraine has destroyed Moscow two times. That's just insane to say. I doubt Putin was expecting this when he started this war. And this is what Moscow looked like if you got out at the airport. Take a look. Now you would think this is a natural phenomenon, but it's not. It's a Ukrainian drone strike and it's still going as you guys are watching this. So we'll break it down strike by strike. Let's look at the first one. And this is what Ukraine destroyed in the first strike that happened on July 18th. First, they destroyed a Wildberries logistics hub. Now Wildberries is kind of like Russian Amazon, but it's much more important than that. They destroyed a hub in Tamboy region and they destroyed an oil depot in Moscow region. Then another Wildberries warehouse in Moscow region. And of course, this is not including Shadow Fleet vessels that Ukraine is hitting in the Black Sea and Azov Sea. Now some of you guys might be confused as to why is Ukraine attacking Russian Amazon. And this is something we'll get into because it has created a lot of controversy. A lot of Russian supporters are saying that Ukraine is now targeting civilian businesses just because they want to make Russia feel the pain. Well, that's not exactly accurate. But before we get into that, let me show you the clips that are coming out of this strike because then you'll understand exactly what kind of firepower Ukraine has put behind this strike. And then we can talk about why Ukraine believes this to be such an important strike. So here are the clips we want to react to. We got a new setup. We're going to have new reactions. So this is the on July 18th when the first strike against the warehouse took place. Take a look. That's the Ukrainian drone. We have other angle. Now this was a massive warehouse. If you guys have seen an Amazon warehouse, well, it was bigger than like normal Amazon warehouses you see here in the United States. And pretty much all the equipment or what would you call it? All the merchandise inside the warehouse was destroyed. So that's something we'll cover in just a second because that's creating a huge economic problem, not just for wild berries, but a big portion of the Russian society. Now, as I mentioned earlier, first strike took place against two wild berry warehouses on July 18. So roughly three days ago. And then another strike took place just yesterday at a different wild berries warehouse or logistical hubs. I think the names are interchangeable, but take a look. Last night, it was a very active night in Moscow because from just one apartment, you could see everything Ukraine was doing in three different places. Take a look. Something's blazing over there and there's something over there near Domo do Dovo too. So let's talk about the controversy with these strikes because many Russians and Russian supporters, of course, are saying that Ukraine is now just targeting civilian infrastructure, going after civilian targets inside of Russia, which is a war crime. But in reality, that's not entirely true because wild berry is not just an online storefront that, you know, Russians use just to buy their groceries. It has very deep ties with the Russian military. Take a look at this screenshot from a wild berry website. What do you see here? This is a screenshot of what is currently being sold on wild berries systems for dropping bombs from grenades, military grade gear, drone components, combat equipment, all of it for purchase and all of it that Russians are actually purchasing and sending it to the front lines. Anyone, any volunteer or anyone who wants to help the troops on the front lines, Russian troops, they can buy this stuff from wild berry and just send it over, help out the troops on the front line. That doesn't really seem like civilian, but don't just believe me. After all, I'm just some pro Ukrainian guy, right? Let's listen to pro Russian war bloggers and what are they saying about this strike? Here's a message from a pro Russian war blogger saying a huge amount of military and dual use goods are sold on wild berry. Volunteers often buy related and essential supplies there for combat operations. So strikes on the warehouse will also deal a serious blow to frontline logistics and volunteer movement. This is the result. Now I do want to spend a little bit of time talking about the legality of this strike in case someone wants to debate with you whether this was legal or not. I don't know why you'd be debating someone who's supporting the Russian side, but nonetheless, under international law, that admission alone basically proves that wild berry was a legitimate military target. Ukraine does not need to prove that every box inside of this warehouse was a military box or something that contained ammunition. They only need to prove that this location or this logistics hub was supporting military activities. It was supporting military logistics. And if they know that, well, guess what? Under international law, it makes it a legitimate target. That's the legal argument. But now let's talk about the moral argument. On the moral side, there's a piece of context that many people are forgetting. For last four years, maybe even five years, Russia has been targeting Ukrainian warehouses, Ukrainian online retailers, Ukrainian logistic companies, anything you can imagine. And every single time, the Russian excuse is the same. They say, hey, this company, this location, this warehouse, well, they were working with the and that's why they were legitimate targets. That's what Russia was saying all this time after their own strikes. And guess what? Now, Ukraine is just giving them a taste of their own medicine. And all of a sudden, Russians don't like the taste of their own medicine because they're not complaining about war crimes, when in reality, this thing could not be further from the war crime. And guess what? On top of this being a tactical blow to Russian activities on the front lines, this is also causing domestic problems, domestic economic problems for a lot of Russians. And let me explain what I mean. Take a listen to this clip. This is a Russian merchant explaining specific details that were buried inside Wildberry contracts, a contract that Wildberry changed just 10 days before the strike, almost like they knew something was coming, and they wanted to just wash their hands away from all the liabilities. So now Russian merchants are getting screwed. Take a listen. Now, doesn't matter how much my mom wishes, I'm actually not a lawyer, and I sure as hell don't understand Russian law. But nonetheless, here's a good report explaining exactly the impact this strike is going to have on Russians who sell on Wildberries, Russians who have invested millions of rubles in running their business, which had products stored at this location or these locations. Take a look at this report. The destruction by Ukrainian drones of two Wildberry's massive warehouses near Moscow is a huge disaster for the Russian economy, which will inflict far more damage than the headline $1.2 billion loss of stock. While Wildberry, the company, can absorb the loss of two of its biggest warehouses, it will not need to compensate sellers, as it has very recently disclaimed responsibility for losses caused by enemy action. The impact of strike on the wider economy will be significant. And as I mentioned just a minute ago, they changed the contract 10 days ago, talk about the timing. But nonetheless, Wildberry's is frequently called the Russian Amazon, but it has a far more dominant role in the Russian economy than Amazon does in Western economies. Since it was founded in 2004, it has become one of the most structurally important companies in the Russian economy. Wildberry's and its rival Ozon control 77% of Russia's e-commerce market, with Wildberry's controlling 45% alone. Ukraine's drone attacks have struck at the heart of the company's success, its huge warehouses. In Electrostal's attack on Saturday, Wildberry's may have lost 350,000 square meters of logistics capacity. Now, human mind cannot actually comprehend 350,000 square meters, but that's roughly like 50 soccer fields. Since World Cup just ended, hopefully you guys can visualize 50 soccer fields. Well, that's roughly what was destroyed in this just one location. There are two others. This location alone accounted for anywhere from 7 to 15% of its all warehouse space. So the whole company's warehouse space was destroyed in one strike. Add in another 200,000 square meters at a different location, and of course, this report came out on July 19th, so a day before the second strike took place yesterday, and that strike also destroyed another warehouse which had another few hundred thousand square meters in warehouse capacity, likely some of it being destroyed, not all of it. This means hundreds of millions of individual items are likely to have been destroyed in the attacks, causing huge losses for traders, likely putting many out of businesses. Billions more rubles in sales and income taxes are likely to be lost to the state as a result of this strike. The effects on Russian military logistics are also likely to be severe. Wildberries and ozone have become key channels, dual use materials, and non-lethal supplies for soldiers at the front. This includes drones, spare parts, night vision equipment, boots, uniform generators, and so on. It will also take a long time for the company to recover. After its warehouse near St. Petersburg was destroyed by a fire in January 2024, rebuilding took one and a half years. Destruction this time is more severe and more widespread. Now, of course, it's important to remember that targeting these warehouses will not end the war, but it will make it harder for Russians to continue fighting, and most certainly, it will increase popular discontent and boost an already widespread desire to end the fighting quickly. And guess what, talking about the bankruptcies, Russian bankruptcies have been going up already because of the economic situation, because of inflation, and because of, you know, the new taxes that Putin is introducing. And this attack is actually resulting in people publicly admitting that they have to declare bankruptcy because of what just took place. I'm just crying. ------- brilliant. This means that, well, everything's gone. Look, I run a business. I'm a small business owner. Yeah, well, I've been trying to run a business for four years. Four years of trying to make money. And I coped with all sorts of ----. This year, I closed my physical shop. I moved back to my old hometown. I moved away from Moscow. I survived, ****, a load of cash flow gaps, tax debts, absolutely everything. My seasonal stock was stuck at customs for a month and a half, right in season. And what? Now the warehouse is on ******* fire where I've got a load of stock worth ******* millions. And 10 days ago, Wildberries brought out new terms and naturally forced us all to sign them, stating that drone strikes are not covered by insurance. Naturally, they won't pay anyone a unbelievable amount of square meters that have burnt to the ******* ground. Naturally, they'll tell us all that none of the stock survived. I don't know what I'm going to do. Sell the car, my flat, I don't know. Shit, I am so ******* done with this. Now, this brings us back to the story that I promised at the start of the video. The wealthiest people in Russia are watching all this and quietly moving their money out because they can see what's happening and they can see what Putin will do next. Because of all the issues that we are covering, Putin is going to come after money that other people have because he needs the funding to continue the war. And that's why they're moving it out. Now, before we talk about that, though, there is something important I need to cover. The one thing I have never liked about YouTube is when creators say, please support the channel, but they don't really give anything back in return. I've done this, so I know it's wrong. And I always felt that it's backwards. That's exactly why we built Basics Insider. If you become a member, you're not just supporting our channel, you actually get something valuable in return. Every single day, we upload exclusive videos that don't appear here on YouTube because honestly, we just cannot post them here. We go much deeper into the stories we cover. We spend more time on details that don't fit into these videos and of course, details that algorithm doesn't like. And on top of that, we bring in experienced military veterans like Chuck Farr to break down frontline footage, explain what's really happening and separate facts from propaganda. One of the biggest benefits we have with Basics Insider is that we don't really have to care about the algorithm because we're not supported by ads, so we don't have to worry about algorithm pushing our content. We can cover stories that we would not have covered otherwise because we don't care about advertisers. On top of that is also uncensored extended coverage for people who want to understand these conflicts beyond the headlines. And of course, I'm not hiding the fact that your membership also helps us. The reality is that YouTube's algorithm changes constantly. Ad revenue goes up and down and videos get recommended one day, then disappear the next. So building a community of members means we can keep producing independent coverage without depending entirely on an algorithm. So if you're interested in more in-depth analysis while helping us continue this work, click the join button down below or head over to basicsinsider.com. By the way, if you guys are on YouTube app on your iPhone or Android, it is a higher price because App Store charges its own fee. So if you don't want to pay that price, you can go to our channel on a browser, on your phone or on a computer. We would love to have you and thank you so much for your support. And now let's get back to our video. You see, as oligarchs are moving wealth out of Russia, this has produced the worst Russian stock market collapse in a generation. So before we talk about the oligarchs, let me show you what the stock market is looking like. Here's that report. The Russian stock market has just posted its longest continuous decline since 1997. That was before I was born. The Moscow exchange index, which tracks 46 of Russia's largest publicly traded companies, dropped 9% this week to 1900 points. That is the lowest index has traded since October 2022. In fact, since beginning of April this year, the Russian stock market has plunged nearly 30%. And here's the number that puts it in perspective. Russian equities, so Russian stocks, are now trading at roughly the same nominal levels that they were trading at in the summer of 2016. Almost a decade of market gains just gone. So if you're a Russian investor, you're probably not feeling too happy. So I guess it kind of makes sense that oligarchs and elites are moving money out of the country, but that's just making the situation worse because they're pulling money out of the stock market and putting it in a different country. Here's the Bloomberg report on that. Several of Russia's richest people, including some close to President Vladimir Putin, have moved billions of dollars abroad in the past year after growing concerned about the country's economy and government budget. High-profile asset seizures have intensified fears among the members of the Russian elite that the state could confiscate their wealth or that they may lose their fortunes. This is according to six wealthy Russians and other people who are familiar with the thinking of several of the country's billionaires. Now, if you've been watching our videos, you know this is something Putin has already been doing. Over the last year, he has confiscated roughly $60 billion in wealth from private Russian citizens. And that's why other people are looking at this and they're like, wait, the economy is going down. He is already stealing money from other billionaires. He's probably going to come for me next. So they're slowly moving the money away from the country. And in a second, I'll actually show you the former Russian prime minister is talking about it. And this is a guy who has actually worked with Putin for four years and then he opposed Putin. But before that, let's follow the money. Let's look at where these oligarchs are actually parking their fortunes. According to Bloomberg sources, Russian billionaires' portfolios have heavily shifted over the past year towards gold, cryptocurrency, foreign properties, and private investment funds, particularly private equity funds based in the Gulf states. Now, that last detail is actually worth pausing on because there's a growing speculation here in the United States that there are some Russian and Chinese billionaires who are parking their capital in Western private equity companies and venture capital funds without those funds fully disclosing where they're getting that money from. And that is a little bit complicated because some of these private equity companies and venture funds are investing in companies and industries that are national security related, that are sensitive in terms of national security. So the fact that we don't exactly know where they are getting that money from, and I don't even know if this is particularly illegal. I'm sure it's not illegal if these big companies are doing it. But the fact that they could be investing in companies that we don't want a Chinese billionaire knowing about or a Russian billionaire knowing about does raise some questions. Now, of course, that's a topic for a different video. So we'll talk about that later. But if that's something you're interested in, maybe something you want to look deeper into. Coming back to Russian outflows, though, the situation has become so severe that there's a pro-Kremlin think tank that supports Kremlin, meaning it's pro-Kremlin, is now that think tank is now warning of a banking crisis that could happen in Russia. And it's important because, you know, like if someone who's pro-Kremlin is saying that, you kind of have to believe that maybe this is a lot more serious than you would think. Now, we actually have a video from a Russian woman who went to a bank to take out her money. And I don't mean to judge a book by her cover, but she did not seem like she was a billionaire. She was just some normal Russian lady and she was not allowed to take her money out. That means the banking crisis could be coming sooner than many people realize. Take a look at this clip. Those of you with money and savings, have you had a surprise from the bank yet? A friend of mine put 20 million into a savings account, received a monthly income and then decided to withdraw the funds. And the bank says to him, how about you give us proof of where this money came from? But he can't prove it because the income was undeclared. Now, this all brings us to the former Russian prime minister and comments that he'd recently made. His name is Mikhail Kashinov. In the year 2000, when Vladimir Putin won his first presidential election, Kazanov, this guy was appointed prime minister of the Russian Federation. He served in that position for four years. So pretty much all of Putin's first term as president. He watched Putin, he worked with him. I'm sure he was very close with Putin. So that means he knows Putin better than most people in the world, especially people who are willing to give interviews. Then after Putin finished his second term as president, he couldn't run again because of the Russian constitution at the time. So this guy actually wanted to run for that position. He wanted to become the next president, but he was pushed out. He was banned from running in the election. So he set up the opposition party in Russia. And then he continued opposing Putin for next 14 years until 2022, when Putin invaded Ukraine. That's when he left the country for his own safety, because he was vocally, publicly very against this invasion. He was very against what Putin was doing. And he saw what was happening to people who were speaking out against this Ukrainian invasion. So he went to a different country and continued fighting his fight. While he's still connected inside of Russia, as you can imagine, he was moving in top of the top circles when he was inside of Russia. So he knows information that normal people may not have access to. And this is what he's sharing about what Russian elites are feeling. Take a listen. If I come back, I will be sentenced for life. Because they're expecting me to change the government and lead this or something like this. But fear also within the elites, Mikhail? Same fear. People cannot escape. They understand they're like hostages, all those ministers and the lower level. They serve Putin because they have to survive. But they're all dreaming about stop the war. Because I understand that's already finito. The human cost, the human toll is taken on Russia. I can only imagine what some families and mothers. Now, this was one of the most interesting interviews I've heard in a long time. So I definitely recommend you guys check it out. It's only like 10 minutes long. So it's not super long. It's on CNN, just look up CNN, Russian PM or former Russian PM, you'll find it on YouTube. But later in the interview, he also talks about what Putin is like in person. What was it like in the early years of presidency? And what is he like right now? Take a listen, because this is definitely a very interesting analysis. And they decided and Putin decided just to close eyes and to allow not to criticize much President Bush on that. And Putin believe that is a silent contract. He interpret international law as he wanted. But simultaneously, he doesn't criticize and doesn't create problems for Bush for Iraq. How would you describe him right now? Now, he's a real KGB guy before at my time, demonstrating to President Yeltsin demonstrated to me and my collaborators in the parliament when we all supported him, just as a person devoted to democratic changes. But on a later stage, he lost this. He pretended to be democratic person and appeared to be now she's a real, real guy with this, I would say, wrong, wrong vision. Narcissistic, you know, grand ideas of himself and of where he sees himself placed in history. How do you think? Keep power. Don't keep personal power. That's the only reason. Keep personal power, just not setting up a new Soviet Union. No, not being a history, not future of the country. That's why sometimes people in the West and leaders on the West sometimes making decisions. I understand Putin should understand that this that is not good for the country. He's indifferent on this. He's thinking about himself what will today and maybe tomorrow, not the day after. Now, it's not just Russian elites that are fearful. Putin himself is also fearful because there are Ukrainian assassination squads that are operating inside of Russia and they are very regularly carrying out successful missions. Just recently, this is what they did. Take a look at the report. One of the architects of Russia's war has been demilitarized. According to Ukrainian sources, Andrey Tesarov, a senior aircraft engine engineer at UEC Kuznetsov was eliminated in Samara. UEC develops and services engines for Russia's Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers. These are the same aircrafts responsible for launching countless missile strikes against Ukrainian cities and civilians. According to the reports, the operation was carried out by the previously unknown volunteer unit, Budanov's detachments. As the group stated, every Russian war criminal, everyone who enables the crimes of the Russian occupation army will face justice wherever they are. Every Russian crime has been documented and attributed to those responsible. Retribution is inevitable. Now, there's actually a footage of this assassination and it's very graphic, so we're not going to cover this on the channel. We're not going to cover it anywhere. I regret I actually looked at the footage, so I don't recommend you guys go out looking for it. But nonetheless, as I mentioned in our basics insider membership, we have been providing exclusive analysis from veterans like Jack Farr as to what's happening on the front lines, what's happening inside of Russia. So if you want to become a member, you can do so by clicking the button down below or by going to basicsinsider.com. You support the channel, but not only that, you get exclusive videos every single day. Anyways, here's a snippet from our most recent analysis that we did with Chuck Farr. Take a listen. A T-90 tank. Yeah, so this is one of Russia's better tanks. This is an early, I don't think it's an M variant. You can see they're firing. You can see the commander at the top. He's hanging out of the hatch. They are, you know, prowling around. He's going to get another shot off here and now we're going to have intro to anti-tank mine. Crosses onto the road and there it is. Okay, and you see that characteristic flash of fire. On the floor of that tank is a carousel of shells and each shell has one or two bags of propellant powder. They're just in these like, used to be silk, it's now nylon. So you load the shell in and then you load the, it's not loose powder, but they're in those packages and it is a design flaw of all those Russian tanks. Back in the 50s, they decided that they would be able to build smaller and lower to the ground tanks if they got rid of the loader. So there's only three people in the crew, the vehicle commander, the driver and the gunner. In an American tank, you don't, you don't stand on the ammunition. It's behind you in a bustle and there's a blast door. And every time you want to load, it's a human being who takes the round out, turns around, shams it into the breach. And the US will mostly use shells that look like big bullets. So the propellant is in a, you know, it's in a big cartridge, right? So brass in the back and pointy end in the front. But this happens every day. And you can see how mine dense it is, right? So the mistake here was crossing the road, probably. Does that also tell us a little bit about how they treat soldiers? Like how they value the soldier's life, I guess, not having a blast door or blast room? Yeah, well, and not doing anything to correct it. You know, they have the T-14 Armata now, but, you know, it's run in a couple of parades broken down in one. There are probably less than 20 of them and they're not ready for prime time. And they have a crew compartment with three people in it and it's totally isolated from the gun. Everything is back aft of working, you know, push button control, which is absolutely groovy unless you lose power. And then you're in a video arcade and you're out of quarters. So. Okay. This is the one you were warning about. Okay. See his red ID patches. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Go ahead. You might not be able to forget this one. Yeah, man. This is also a recent clip. The last one was older. The mines are still playing a big role. Yeah, they, they are. And very often, you know, the heavier lift drones will drop, drop the drones or not even drop them in place them. And you do things like you take the anti-tank mine and you get, I'm serious, paper mache, and you put it on there in a blob and you throw some dirt and twigs and rocks on, you know, styrofoam rocks. And, but you'll hear me say this again. I mean, this is what happens to 95% of Russian casualties happen just like that. It's a drone, not rifle fire, indirect weapons, mortars, artillery, it's drones. It's all of those things together. But if your mama gets a letter in Russia saying you've been killed, you went just like that. Yeah. It is sad. It is sad. I mean, war sucks. Yeah. These guys could end it. Just go home. I mean, they're complaining about it. Have you seen Pascal was complaining about the war today? Yeah. Listen, that, right. You know, there's two entities that won't survive this war. You know, if they lose it, Ukraine can't lose it because they will be, you know, you can imagine Russian mercy, but the other thing that can't lose it as Putin, this was his idea. This was his big city move, man. And he's eating it. Okay. Next one is the trend system fight or the fight in the trench. So we've got, again, here, we've got some, you just roll it. I guess we've got some English speakers in here. Uh, there's another video where we've got all English speakers, longer contact 2026, by the way. Yeah, this is 2026. Okay. So you got contact. Uh, that guy was actually doing the right thing. You don't, you don't want to be on a wall. You want to be one foot off the wall because if a bullet hits it, it doesn't bounce like a pool ball. It'll, it'll go down the wall. It, once it hits the wall, it'll go down the wall about 10 inches off the wall. I would have pulled in behind that, uh, beam a little bit. And again, I got to say that, that look, I hate coming up with a Monday morning quarterback. And when guys are in, you know, I, I hate doing it. It's just, I'll just give you the pro tips. So I believe this guy get, was wounded in this and that, uh, I believe a bullet hit his helmet, which tells me, yeah, they can see it hit the wall there. So somebody was beating a headshot on him. So they were, they were down there. You need to move now. Yeah. I'm trying to figure out where the bad guys are, what's going on. Whoever made this tent, this trench made it the right way. But you know, this is likely a Ukrainian trench. I, I think it's a Ukrainian trench. The Russians are trying to storm it. Yeah. They got into it. And here's, here's a, you know, here's a pro tip. I don't, I don't play any of those first person shooter games, but never send a man where you can send a hand grenade. Okay. And when in doubt, the bad guys are all over there. So, you know, you got to frag, just let it go. Let them deal with it. Okay, cool. When you shot him, you were here. ****. Yeah. One of the things I like about this, Sam is one of the hardest things to do in combat is know what's going on. I mean, you, you, it isn't a video game. You don't know where the bad guys are. You know, it, it's more like this than the movies. You're like, okay, what the hell's going on? Now we got a guy who's hurt.